YULETIDE: Again Ohanaeze cries out, condemns flooding of S’East with checkpoints

Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has cried out again, this time not on marginalisation, or its zone’s infrastructural decay, but the sharp increase in number of security checkpoints in the region at this festive period.

Condemning the development, Ohanaeze claimed that the flooding of the zone with security checkpoints was orchestrated purposely to harass and exploit the people of the area who would return en masse for the Christmas festivities.

In a statement Anambra State chairman of the group, Chief Damian Okeke-Ogene, made available to newsmen, he said that the incessant harassment of Igbo would no longer be tolerated.

“As we step into December, the month of festivities, with higher numbers of our people returning for the holidays, the number of check points has started increasing. We know that the target is our people who are returning.

“In the past we had asked that the harassments these checkpoints present should be addressed. The authorities would claim that they are dismantling them, but their numbers continue increasing. We condemn the practices.

“We’re not in a war. Police, Customs, Soldiers, and other security agents have formed the habit of mounting check points to extort our people. It does not matter whether people have their complete vehicle particulars, or can account for the goods that they have.

“They are treated like criminals, harassed, embarrassed, delayed from their journeys, all in the bid to make them part with money. It is mostly in Anambra State that these checkpoints are mounted, or on roads that our people pass.

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“Ohanaeze Ndigbo condemns these practices in their entirety. While it is important that the security agencies do their work, part of that work is not embarrassing travelers and extorting them. It is totally unacceptable to us,” the statement partly read.

The group meanwhile said that it was making efforts to end the harassment by establishing telephone numbers which travelers can call when security agencies make illegal demands on them.

 

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